244-511: The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through its 2013 bankruptcy, and again since 2016 when it was revived. The opera company, dubbed "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia , was founded in 1943. The company's stated purpose was to make opera accessible to a wide audience at
488-467: A cinematheque , the basement became a 299-seat off-Broadway theater called The Space in 1981. When The Space opened, it was only occasionally used by dance companies. The Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) moved to The Space in 1984 and divided the basement into two auditoriums. As of 2022 , MTC operates two off-Broadway spaces in the basement, known as Stage I and Stage II. Stage I contains 299 seats, while Stage II contains 150 seats. MTC also operates
732-519: A conductor . Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of Western classical music , and Italian tradition in particular. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres , including some that include spoken dialogue such as Singspiel and Opéra comique . In traditional number opera , singers employ two styles of singing: recitative ,
976-477: A "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts , such as acting , scenery , costume , and sometimes dance or ballet . The performance is typically given in an opera house , accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble , which since the early 19th century has been led by
1220-541: A $ 60 million annual budget, which was cut to $ 36 million due to the economic climate. Michael Kaiser was appointed to advise the board on a turnaround strategy, including the recruitment of a new general director. The David H. Koch Theater (previously known as the New York State Theater) underwent major renovations during the 2008/09 season. During the construction the company did not stage opera in its home at Lincoln Center. Instead, New York City Opera presented
1464-499: A 12-story office tower. The Shriners decided in 1921 to construct the 55th Street building after having outgrown their previous headquarters, and the new building was dedicated on December 29, 1924. The Great Depression prompted the Shriners to downsize their activities in the 1930s and relocate out of the building entirely by 1940. New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia and New York City Council president Newbold Morris established
1708-509: A 1982 renovation, City Center officials removed another 186 seats from the orchestra, reducing it to 2.746 seats. The 1982 renovation also included raising the entire orchestra and raking the first ten rows. The front rows of the rebuilt orchestra were raised 10 inches (250 mm), while the rear rows were raised by as much as 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 m). City Center was again downsized in 2011 to approximately 2,250 seats. This project involved removing six rows of seats, increasing
1952-452: A 3-inch (7.6 cm) layer of a material called "Nailcrete", which was spread across metal lath ; the terracotta tiles were then attached to the Nailcrete. Both the 1922 and 2005 tiles for the structure were produced by Ludowici Roof Tile and colored in a varied blend of reds and ochers. The tiles gradually narrow near the top of the dome, which also makes City Center the only structure in
2196-471: A 60th anniversary concert production of William Grant Still 's Troubled Island . In June 2009 Bloomberg reported that the company had incurred a $ 11 million deficit for the year ending June 2008. Revenue fell 23 percent to $ 32.9 million, and expenses rose 11 percent to $ 44.2 million. In January 2009, the company announced the appointment of George Steel as general manager and artistic director, effective February 1, 2009. The New York Times reported at
2440-588: A Monastery , and War and Peace ; as well as Dmitri Shostakovich in The Nose and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District , Edison Denisov in L'écume des jours , and Alfred Schnittke in Life with an Idiot and Historia von D. Johann Fausten . Czech composers also developed a thriving national opera movement of their own in the 19th century, starting with Bedřich Smetana , who wrote eight operas including
2684-432: A banquet hall. This space did not contain columns. Instead, it was spanned by a set of deep lattice trusses , which were flanked by deep plate girders ; these formed the floor of the auditorium. The space between the trusses contained ducts that supplied fresh air to the auditorium and basement; a system of exhaust pipes for the basement; and other utilities. After an attempt in 1970 to convert City Center's basement into
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#17328519068812928-573: A cello; or accompagnato (also known as strumentato ) in which the orchestra provided accompaniment. Over the 18th century, arias were increasingly accompanied by the orchestra. By the 19th century, accompagnato had gained the upper hand, the orchestra played a much bigger role, and Wagner revolutionized opera by abolishing almost all distinction between aria and recitative in his quest for what Wagner termed "endless melody". Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagner 's example, though some, such as Stravinsky in his The Rake's Progress have bucked
3172-514: A coatroom, restroom, and members' lounge on the landing of the staircase between the basement and the lobby. The three lodge rooms were placed in the northern wing of the building. When the Mecca Temple was converted to the City Center, the lodge rooms became rehearsal studios. During the 1950s, scripts for the television show Your Show of Shows , starring Sid Caesar , were written in one of
3416-472: A company mission". Tommasini called Kellogg's decision, at the urging of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani , to open its season on September 15, 2001, directly after the 9/11 attacks , "the most meaningful day of music in 2001," and later used NYCO's opening day in 2001 and its 2009/10 season as symbolic bookends for New York's music scene in the first decade of the 21st century. Vox, Contemporary Opera Lab (also known as Vox: Showcasing American Composers )
3660-506: A complex web of leitmotifs , recurring themes often associated with the characters and concepts of the drama, of which prototypes can be heard in his earlier operas such as Der fliegende Holländer , Tannhäuser and Lohengrin ; and he was prepared to violate accepted musical conventions, such as tonality , in his quest for greater expressivity. In his mature music dramas, Tristan und Isolde , Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal , he abolished
3904-471: A concern for expressive recitative which matched the contours of the French language. In the 18th century, Lully's most important successor was Jean-Philippe Rameau , who composed five tragédies en musique as well as numerous works in other genres such as opéra-ballet , all notable for their rich orchestration and harmonic daring. Despite the popularity of Italian opera seria throughout much of Europe during
4148-601: A concert version of Samuel Barber 's Antony and Cleopatra at Carnegie Hall in January 2009, as well as other concerts and programs around the city, and continued to make classroom presentations in New York City's public schools. The company presented three concerts at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in 2009: I'm On My Way: Black History at City Opera , One Fine Day: A Tribute to Camilla Williams , and
4392-585: A family opera concert of Oliver Knussen 's Where the Wild Things Are with a libretto by Maurice Sendak ; and Defying Gravity: The Music of Stephen Schwartz with Kristin Chenoweth and Raúl Esparza . In May 2011, the company announced that it would leave Lincoln Center to conserve costs, and present its upcoming season in different venues throughout the city. On the business side, the opera underwent tremendous change under Steel's tenure, which both balanced
4636-550: A future mayoral administration from shuttering City Center, the CCMD renewed its lease of the building in July 1945 for five years, paying at least $ 10,000 a year. City Center planned to establish a theatrical company for the 1945–1946 season, which would present revivals of plays; during that season, the center hosted 614,000 guests. Officials installed an air-conditioning system in the auditorium in mid-1946. City Center remained popular in
4880-474: A grill room on the ground floor, a lounge and committee room on the second floor, executive offices on the third floor, and an assembly room on the fourth floor. By the early 1920s, the Shriners had outgrown their 45th Street location and wished to build a new headquarters prior to their 50th anniversary in 1922. This prompted 1,500 Shriners to vote in favor of a new temple in April 1921. The Shriners planned to fund
5124-584: A hearing. Berlioz's epic masterpiece Les Troyens , the culmination of the Gluckian tradition, was not given a full performance for almost a hundred years. In the second half of the 19th century, Jacques Offenbach created operetta with witty and cynical works such as Orphée aux enfers , as well as the opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann ; Charles Gounod scored a massive success with Faust ; and Georges Bizet composed Carmen , which, once audiences learned to accept its blend of Romanticism and realism, became
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#17328519068815368-480: A hedge fund manager and accomplished amateur musician who had earlier served on the New York City Opera board, and who pledged more than $ 1 million of his own money to the effort, and raised at least $ 2.5 million. The bankruptcy court approved the reorganization plan of New York City Opera Renaissance, allowing it to leave bankruptcy and re-launch performances, in January 2016. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said he
5612-487: A highly varied body of operatic works, often with libretti by the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal . Other composers who made individual contributions to German opera in the early 20th century include Alexander von Zemlinsky , Erich Korngold , Franz Schreker , Paul Hindemith , Kurt Weill and the Italian-born Ferruccio Busoni . The operatic innovations of Arnold Schoenberg and his successors are discussed in
5856-561: A house of worship on 55th Street with the Manhattan Bureau of Buildings in August 1922. The structure was to cost $ 750,000 and was to contain a meeting hall in the basement; a three-level auditorium; three studios; and three stories of offices. The auditorium was to contain 5,000 seats, which would allow it to be rented out for events such as concerts. James Stewart & Co. was hired as the building's general contractor. The Shriners hosted
6100-514: A huge accumulated deficit, the market collapse of 2008, the radical reduction by the board of the budget and of the size of the season, and the sudden withdrawal of Gerard Mortier, who was to have become General Manager after a lengthy period without leadership (Paul Kellogg, the previous General Director had left in 2007). Under Steel during the 2009–2010 season, the company returned with an opening night program called American Voices consisting of excerpts from American opera. The season also included
6344-453: A large variety of works for stage. Perhaps, the most famous Iranian opera is Rostam and Sohrab by Loris Tjeknavorian premiered not until the early 2000s. Chinese contemporary classical opera , a Chinese language form of Western style opera that is distinct from traditional Chinese opera , has had operas dating back to The White-Haired Girl in 1945. In Latin America, opera started as
6588-446: A long future with New York City Opera." NYCO Renaissance presented Puccini's Tosca – using Adolfo Hohenstein 's stage and costume design from the opera's premiere in 1900 in Rome – in January 2016 at the 1,100-seat Rose Theater. It had two separate casts, including tenor James Valenti and soprano Latonia Moore , and the least expensive balcony seats were $ 25. Tosca had been, in 1944,
6832-475: A major opera house. In the fall of 1949, the NYCO revived Prokofiev's comic opera The Love for Three Oranges , which had not been seen in America since its unsuccessful Chicago premiere in 1921. The new production, directed by Vladimir Rosing , turned into a smash hit and was brought back for two additional seasons. Also in 1949, Halasz scheduled the world premiere of David Tamkin 's The Dybbuk to be performed by
7076-538: A net profit of $ 844. This prompted City Center officials to make plans for their own ballet company and repertory theater company. Friedgut resigned as managing director in July 1944, citing disputes with Morris. Although attendance at City Center doubled to 750,000 during the 1944–1945 season, the center recorded a net loss of $ 36,000, in part because of the orchestra company's large expenses. The Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo began performing at City Center in late 1944 and remained there for five years. To prevent
7320-506: A new phrase. This fashion of opera directed opera from Verdi, onward, exercising tremendous influence on his successors Giacomo Puccini , Richard Strauss , and Benjamin Britten . After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni 's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo 's Pagliacci that came to dominate
7564-702: A new production titled Monodramas which consisted of three solo one-act works: John Zorn 's La Machine de l'être , Arnold Schoenberg 's Erwartung , and Morton Feldman 's Neither . The company also staged the American premiere of Séance on a Wet Afternoon , the first opera by Stephen Schwartz , the veteran composer of Broadway musicals. In addition, the company presented several concert performances that included: An Evening With Christine Brewer ; Lucky To Be Me: The Music of Leonard Bernstein ; John Zorn & Friends (with Laurie Anderson , Lou Reed , Mike Patton , Marc Ribot , Dave Douglas , and Uri Caine );
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7808-520: A new seriousness to the genre, which had never been wholly "comic" in any case. Another phenomenon of this period was the 'propaganda opera' celebrating revolutionary successes, e.g. Gossec's Le triomphe de la République (1793). By the 1820s, Gluckian influence in France had given way to a taste for Italian bel canto , especially after the arrival of Rossini in Paris . Rossini's Guillaume Tell helped found
8052-476: A nineteenth-century peak of Polish national opera . In the 20th century, other operas created by Polish composers included King Roger by Karol Szymanowski and Ubu Rex by Krzysztof Penderecki . The first known opera from Turkey (the Ottoman Empire ) was Arshak II , which was an Armenian opera composed by an ethnic Armenian composer Tigran Chukhajian in 1868 and partially performed in 1873. It
8296-418: A nonprofit group, NYCO Renaissance, revived the opera company under new management when its reorganization plans for the company to leave bankruptcy and re-launch performances were approved in bankruptcy court. The group, led by Roy Niederhoffer , a hedge fund manager and former board member of the NYCO, announced plans to present a season of opera in 2016−17. The first opera was Puccini's Tosca , presented at
8540-512: A parade on October 13, 1923, after which Arthur S. Tompkins , a New York state judge and the Grand Master of Masons in New York State, laid the building's cornerstone on 56th Street. At the time, the building was planned to cost $ 2.5 million. The Mecca Temple received a $ 1 million mortgage loan from Manufacturers Trust in July 1924. The building was dedicated on December 29, 1924, with
8784-879: A reasonable ticket price. It also sought to produce an innovative choice of repertory, and provide a home for American singers and composers. The company was originally housed at the New York City Center theater on West 55th Street in Manhattan. It later became part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at the New York State Theater from 1966 to 2010. During this time it produced autumn and spring seasons of opera in repertory, and maintained extensive education and outreach programs, offering arts-in-education programs to 4,000 students in over 30 schools. In 2011,
9028-503: A refund. The group announced plans to relaunch New York City Opera in January 2016, with a mix of opera staples and niche works. The proposed new home for a revived NYCO is the modern 1,100-seat Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center . Both the City Opera board and – unanimously – the creditors' committee (those owed money in the bankruptcy) preferred the bid of NYCO Renaissance, which was backed financially and chaired by Roy Niederhoffer ,
9272-416: A renovation of the 55th Street building in 1967. This money was used to overhaul the air-conditioning system, repaint the interior, and replace wiring. After Baum died in early 1968, the CCMD's board appointed an executive committee to temporarily take over the organization's operations. Later the same year, the CCMD appointed Norman Singer as the organization's general administrator and Richard Clurman as
9516-746: A result of European colonisation. The first opera ever written in the Americas was 1701's La púrpura de la rosa , by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco , a Peruvian composer born in Spain; a decade later, 1711's Partenope , by the Mexican Manuel de Zumaya , was the first opera written from a composer born in Latin America (music now lost). The first Brazilian opera for a libretto in Portuguese was A Noite de São João , by Elias Álvares Lobo . However, Antônio Carlos Gomes
9760-475: A revealing, even defining, season for the rebooted City Opera." New York Classical Review wrote: "On this occasion, Pagliacci emerged considerably more moving than the recent Met production by David McVicar , mostly due to the Rose's increased intimacy. It also didn't hurt that, for the role of Canio, the company snagged Francesco Anile ... [who] has the voice: a clear, expressive instrument that pleasantly "pings" above
10004-595: A revival of Hugo Weisgall 's Esther , and a new production of Mozart 's Don Giovanni directed by Christopher Alden . The spring season opened in March 2010 and included Emmanuel Chabrier 's L'étoile directed by Mark Lamos , and Handel 's Partenope directed by Andrew Chown; original production directed by Francisco Negrin . The company also continued to collaborate with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Opera Noire of New York to highlight
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10248-519: A school. The lots on the southern part of the building's site, at 131–133 West 55th Street, had been used by Famous Players–Lasky Corporation as a movie studio. The two lots on the northern part of the site, at 132 and 134 West 56th Street, contained horse stables. New York City Center was built by the Shriners between 1922 and 1924 as the Mecca Temple , a Masonic house of worship. The building
10492-513: A separate French tradition was founded by the Italian-born French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully at the court of King Louis XIV . Despite his foreign birthplace, Lully established an Academy of Music and monopolised French opera from 1672. Starting with Cadmus et Hermione , Lully and his librettist Quinault created tragédie en musique , a form in which dance music and choral writing were particularly prominent. Lully's operas also show
10736-715: A speech-inflected style, and self-contained arias . The 19th century saw the rise of the continuous music drama . Opera originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri 's mostly lost Dafne , produced in Florence in 1598) especially from works by Claudio Monteverdi , notably L'Orfeo , and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Heinrich Schütz in Germany, Jean-Baptiste Lully in France, and Henry Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in
10980-508: A steel superstructure . The roof is carried by a large 65-short-ton (58-long-ton; 59 t) girder measuring 92.5 feet (28.2 m) long and 13 feet (4.0 m) wide. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) wrote that, at the time, it was the largest piece of steel ever installed in a New York City building. In keeping with the Shriners' heritage, the City Center building's facade incorporates several motifs inspired by Islamic architecture . Knowles had to work around
11224-469: A superb sense of drama, harmony, melody, and counterpoint to write a series of comic operas with libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte , notably Le nozze di Figaro , Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , which remain among the most-loved, popular and well-known operas. But Mozart's contribution to opera seria was more mixed; by his time it was dying away, and in spite of such fine works as Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito , he would not succeed in bringing
11468-439: A three-level auditorium with space for 5,000 people in total. The building also contained a banquet room in the basement, which could fit 5,000 people, and three lodge rooms on the upper stories, which could accommodate another 3,000 people. By 2010, the building contained 12 stories of offices, a main auditorium with 2,753 seats, two smaller auditoriums in the basement, and four studios. The main doorways on 55th Street lead to
11712-440: A ticket lobby, where gold-metal doors surrounded by ceramic tiles lead to the main auditorium. In 2011, the lobbies were rearranged so that audiences entered the auditorium from the sides, rather than from the rear. The modern-day lobby is divided into outer and inner sections. The outer lobby has a bar, while the inner lobby has screens for video installations, which are changed three times a year. The original seating capacity of
11956-562: A two-block section of West 57th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway . The hub had been developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the opening of Carnegie Hall. Several buildings in the area were constructed as residences for artists and musicians, such as 130 and 140 West 57th Street, the Rodin Studios , and the Osborne Apartments , as well as the demolished Sherwood Studios and Rembrandt. In addition,
12200-728: Is a performing home for several major dance companies as well as the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), and it hosts the Encores! musical theater series and the Fall for Dance Festival annually. The facility was designed by Harry P. Knowles and Clinton and Russell in the Moorish Revival style and is divided into two parts. The southern section houses a main auditorium, with 2,257 seats across three levels; this auditorium could originally fit over four thousand people, but it has been downsized over
12444-617: Is generally regarded as the most outstanding Brazilian composer, having a relative success in Italy with its Brazilian-themed operas with Italian librettos, such as Il Guarany . Opera in Argentina developed in the 20th century after the inauguration of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires—with the opera Aurora , by Ettore Panizza , being heavily influenced by the Italian tradition, due to immigration. Other important composers from Argentina include Felipe Boero and Alberto Ginastera . Perhaps
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#173285190688112688-439: Is more important than ever that all institutions, from a fledgling string quartet to the lofty Metropolitan Opera, have an effective business model. A not-for-profit company named NYCO Renaissance Ltd. proposed a Chapter 11 plan for the reorganization of New York City Opera in 2015, and the reorganization of the existing company took place in 2016. An additional incentive was made to those who had purchased tickets and not received
12932-620: Is most famous for his Italian comic operas , especially The Marriage of Figaro ( Le nozze di Figaro ), Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , as well as Die Entführung aus dem Serail ( The Abduction from the Seraglio ), and The Magic Flute ( Die Zauberflöte ), landmarks in the German tradition. The first third of the 19th century saw the high point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini , Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini all creating signature works of that style. It also saw
13176-570: Is on the right track to re-establishing itself as a force in the opera world." In January 2022, NYCO produced the world premiere of Michael Korie and Ricky Ian Gordon 's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis in co-production with the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene . Notes Opera Opera is a form of Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers . Such
13420-482: Is the first opera score to have survived until the present day. However, the honour of being the first opera still to be regularly performed goes to Claudio Monteverdi 's L'Orfeo , composed for the court of Mantua in 1607. The Mantua court of the Gonzagas , employers of Monteverdi, played a significant role in the origin of opera employing not only court singers of the concerto delle donne (till 1598), but also one of
13664-830: Is the shift away from long, suspended melodies, to short quick mottos, as first illustrated by Giuseppe Verdi in his Falstaff . Composers such as Strauss, Britten, Shostakovich and Stravinsky adopted and expanded upon this style. Operatic modernism truly began in the operas of two Viennese composers, Arnold Schoenberg and his student Alban Berg , both composers and advocates of atonality and its later development (as worked out by Schoenberg), dodecaphony . Schoenberg's early musico-dramatic works, Erwartung (1909, premiered in 1924) and Die glückliche Hand display heavy use of chromatic harmony and dissonance in general. Schoenberg also occasionally used Sprechstimme . The two operas of Schoenberg's pupil Alban Berg, Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (incomplete at his death in 1935) share many of
13908-521: The English Restoration , foreign (especially French) musicians were welcomed back. In 1673, Thomas Shadwell 's Psyche , patterned on the 1671 'comédie-ballet' of the same name produced by Molière and Jean-Baptiste Lully . William Davenant produced The Tempest in the same year, which was the first musical adaption of a Shakespeare play (composed by Locke and Johnson). About 1683, John Blow composed Venus and Adonis , often thought of as
14152-498: The Mecca Temple , City Center of Music and Drama , and the New York City Center 55th Street Theater ) is a performing arts center at 131 West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City . Developed by the Shriners between 1922 and 1924 as a Masonic meeting house, it has operated as a performing arts complex owned by the government of New York City . City Center
14396-466: The Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City . The building's L-shaped land lot covers 25,153 square feet (2,336.8 m ), extending 200 feet (61 m) northward to 56th Street, with frontage of 150 feet (46 m) along 55th Street and 100 feet (30 m) on 56th Street. City Center abuts the CitySpire office building to the west and 125 West 55th Street to the east. Immediately to
14640-572: The New York City Center on West 55th Street , in Manhattan. City Center's chair of the finance committee, Morton Baum , mayor Fiorello La Guardia and council president Newbold Morris hired Laszlo Halasz hired the company's first director, serving in that position from 1943 until 1951. Given the company's goal of making opera accessible to the masses, Halasz believed that tickets should be inexpensive and that productions should be staged convincingly with singers who were both physically and vocally suited to their roles. To this end, ticket prices during
14884-507: The New York State Theater at Lincoln Center after the 1963–1964 season. By the CCMD's 20th anniversary in December 1943, the theater had received 16 million total guests over twenty 40-week seasons. During the 1963–1964 season, the CCMD recorded a net profit for the first time in 18 years, after donors covered that season's operating deficits. Meanwhile, the CCMD was still contemplating relocating its opera, light opera, and drama companies to
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#173285190688115128-481: The New York Times , music critic Anthony Tommasini noted one of the reasons for the company's 2013 bankruptcy (as well as relating it to other failed arts organizations): In short, artistic excellence is not enough. Any institution, big or small, old or new, must have a clear artistic vision, a purpose that connects with audiences and the community. But the performing arts have never been profit-making endeavors. It
15372-523: The Northeastern United States with a dome of graduated clay tiles. The top of the dome originally was decorated with a scimitar and a crescent. The roof was renovated in 2005. The refurbished roof includes a 1 ⁄ 8 -inch (3.2 mm) waterproof membrane underneath each tile; a steel frame above the membrane; and 8,000 stainless-steel anchors that connect the tiles to the steel frame. The 56th Street elevation of City Center's facade
15616-586: The Sinfonietta and the Glagolitic Mass . Spain also produced its own distinctive form of opera, known as zarzuela , which had two separate flowerings: one from the mid-17th century through the mid-18th century, and another beginning around 1850. During the late 18th century up until the mid-19th century, Italian opera was immensely popular in Spain, supplanting the native form . In Russian Eastern Europe, several national operas began to emerge. Ukrainian opera
15860-568: The dramatist Sir William Davenant produced The Siege of Rhodes . Since his theatre was not licensed to produce drama, he asked several of the leading composers ( Lawes , Cooke , Locke , Coleman and Hudson ) to set sections of it to music. This success was followed by The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659). These pieces were encouraged by Oliver Cromwell because they were critical of Spain. With
16104-462: The libretto (meaning "small book"). Some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti; others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e.g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte . Traditional opera, often referred to as " number opera ", consists of two modes of singing: recitative , the plot-driving passages sung in a style designed to imitate and emphasize the inflections of speech, and aria (an "air" or formal song) in which
16348-533: The 130 West 56th Street Corporation had not paid taxes for several months, and the New York City Treasurer 's office was acting as the receiver for the theater and office building. That September, the New York City government bought the building for $ 100,000 at a foreclosure auction. The city was offering the Mecca Temple for rent the next month. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and New York City Council president Newbold Morris began planning to convert
16592-463: The 1640s. His most important follower Francesco Cavalli helped spread opera throughout Italy. In these early Baroque operas, broad comedy was blended with tragic elements in a mix that jarred some educated sensibilities, sparking the first of opera's many reform movements, sponsored by the Arcadian Academy , which came to be associated with the poet Metastasio , whose libretti helped crystallize
16836-451: The 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe (except France), attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel . Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. The most renowned figure of late 18th-century opera is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , who began with opera seria but
17080-546: The 18th century another genre was gaining popularity in France: opéra comique . This was the equivalent of the German singspiel , where arias alternated with spoken dialogue. Notable examples in this style were produced by Monsigny , Philidor and, above all, Grétry . During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, composers such as Étienne Méhul , Luigi Cherubini and Gaspare Spontini , who were followers of Gluck, brought
17324-500: The 1949–1950 season, the CCMD recorded a net operating loss of $ 3,517 during that season. Several months before City Center's lease expired in 1950, musicians' labor union Local 802 had proposed buying the building for $ 850,000. Theatrical critic Brooks Atkinson wrote that "all of the City Center's programs lose money. But the losses are not calamitous" because of the theater's relatively cheap tickets and because of various large donations. Uncertainty over City Center's lease caused
17568-499: The 1950–1951 season to be delayed, as the CCMD could not book shows until its lease had been renewed. After mayor William O'Dwyer pledged his support of City Center, the Board of Estimate renewed the CCMD's lease in February 1950. The CCMD agreed to cap ticket prices at $ 2.50, and its rent was set at 1.5 percent of its annual gross receipts. City Center's deficit grew to over $ 72,000 during
17812-446: The 1950–1951 season. By mid-1951, Baum considered hosting dramas only during the winter, as attendance was generally lower during the spring. Low patronage during the summer had already prompted him to stop staging musicals in July and August. The CCMD announced plans in March 1952 to convert one of the center's emergency-exit hallways into a visual art gallery ; the space would exhibit contemporary sculptures and visual art. Kirstein
18056-514: The 1959–1960 season prompted officials to increase the center's maximum ticket prices by mid-1960. As early as 1959, the CCMD was negotiating to move all of its shows from the former Mecca Temple to the newly-developed Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The CCMD closed City Center's art gallery in May 1961, as the gallery had been unprofitable and had not attracted sponsorships. At
18300-460: The 19th century in Russia, there were written such operatic masterpieces as Rusalka and The Stone Guest by Alexander Dargomyzhsky , Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina by Modest Mussorgsky , Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin , Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades by Pyotr Tchaikovsky , and The Snow Maiden and Sadko by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov . These developments mirrored
18544-558: The 20th century for his innovative works. His later, mature works incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music in a modern, highly original synthesis, first evident in the opera Jenůfa , which was premiered in 1904 in Brno . The success of Jenůfa (often called the " Moravian national opera") at Prague in 1916 gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as Káťa Kabanová and The Cunning Little Vixen ,
18788-541: The 20th century, English opera began to assert more independence, with works of Ralph Vaughan Williams and in particular Benjamin Britten , who in a series of works that remain in standard repertory today, revealed an excellent flair for the dramatic and superb musicality. More recently Sir Harrison Birtwistle has emerged as one of Britain's most significant contemporary composers from his first opera Punch and Judy to his most recent critical success in The Minotaur . In
19032-567: The 55th Street theater's basement into the City Center Cinematheque, with one or more movie theaters and a film museum. In January 1971. the CCMD proposed taking over Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater and renovating it. To fund the $ 5.2 million cost of renovating the Beaumont, the CCMD planned to demolish the 55th Street theater and replace it with an office skyscraper containing a 3,000-seat theater. The CCMD withdrew its plan for
19276-561: The 55th Street theater. The CCMD became a member company of Lincoln Center in 1965 and signed a sublease for the New York State Theater in January 1966. Although the organization recorded a $ 1.7 million operating deficit during the 1965–1966 season due to the costs of the second theater, this was offset by nearly $ 2 million in donations. The CCMD continued to subsidize the 55th Street theater after relocating its ballet and opera companies. After Newbold Morris retired in 1966, Baum
19520-632: The Acting Company , which became the City Center Acting Company. By October 1972, the CCMD had recorded a total deficit of $ 1.3 million. The organization had recorded a net operating loss of $ 3.7 million for the 1971–1972 season, but it had not received enough grants and donations to offset these losses, which grew during the next year. Although the Ford Foundation gave $ 500,000 each to the CCMD's ballet and opera companies in early 1973,
19764-564: The Baroque period, Italian opera never gained much of a foothold in France, where its own national operatic tradition was more popular instead. After Rameau's death, the Bohemian-Austrian composer Gluck was persuaded to produce six operas for the Parisian stage in the 1770s. They show the influence of Rameau, but simplified and with greater focus on the drama. At the same time, by the middle of
20008-574: The Beach ), Mark Adamo , John Corigliano ( The Ghosts of Versailles ), Robert Moran , John Adams ( Nixon in China ), André Previn and Jake Heggie . Many contemporary 21st century opera composers have emerged such as Missy Mazzoli , Kevin Puts , Tom Cipullo , Huang Ruo , David T. Little , Terence Blanchard , Jennifer Higdon , Tobias Picker , Michael Ching , Anthony Davis , and Ricky Ian Gordon . Opera
20252-603: The Beaumont that December, but it continued to contemplate the demolition of the 55th Street theater. City Center stopped producing drama altogether in 1969, although Singer proposed creating a drama company in early 1972. Before the 1972–1973 season began, two companies joined the CCMD: the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater , which became the Alvin Ailey City Center Dance Theater, and
20496-487: The Board of Estimate voted to provide $ 65,000 for the building's renovation. The next month, the Board of Estimate gave the CCMD a permit to stage live shows within the Mecca Temple. Due to material shortages during World War II, the city government postponed the renovation of the theater's interior. Harry Friedgut was appointed as City Center's first managing director in September 1943, while Morris served as chairman of
20740-609: The CCMD had to drastically reduce funding for the Joffrey Ballet and for the proposed Cinematheque. Later that year, the Board of Estimate extended the theater's lease for another 52 years. By the 1970s, the CCMD was subsidizing the ballet and opera at Lincoln Center, as well as the Joffrey Ballet, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, the Acting Company, and the Young People's Theater at 55th Street. The CCMD also subsidized
20984-445: The CCMD planned to construct a dance theater in the proposed skyscraper. Singer resigned as the organization's director that July. By then, the center's net deficit had grown to $ 4 million. The CCMD ultimately decided to retain the existing building in early 1975. A reorganization of City Center began in May 1975, when the CCMD's interim chairman created a board of governors, which in turn established separate boards of directors for
21228-541: The CCMD, had already stopped operating. The Joffrey Ballet, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, the American Ballet Theatre, and the Eliot Feld Ballet proposed taking over the 55th Street theater in April 1976, alleging that the CCMD had retained control over the building while forcing the ballet companies to subsidize their own operation. CCMD officials agreed to turn over the 55th Street theater's operation to
21472-490: The CCMD. The Mecca Temple was officially renamed City Center shortly afterward. The CCMD began paying $ 2,000 a month in rent that October, before the theater had formally opened. City Center opened on December 11, 1943, with a concert by the New York Philharmonic and a birthday party for La Guardia. The publicist Jean Dalrymple was appointed as volunteer director of public relations. The first theatrical show
21716-648: The Cinematheque, which had leased space under the Queensboro Bridge in 1973; the Cinematheque never opened due to a lack of money. In addition, the CCMD co-produced the American Ballet Theatre (ABT). CCMD officials considered selling the 55th Street theater in 1974 to a developer who planned to erect a residential and commercial skyscraper on much of the block. The 55th Street theater had hosted dance performances nearly exclusively for several years, so
21960-459: The City Ballet, the City Opera, and the 55th Street theater. The board of governors had 12 members, compared to the 41-member board of directors. John S. Samuels III became the chairman of the board of governors the same year. The CCMD concentrated its resources on the ballet and opera companies at Lincoln Center. The drama and music companies at the 55th Street theater, no longer subsidized by
22204-476: The City Center 55th Street Theater Foundation took over operation. City Center largely hosted dance performances during the late 20th century, although it also began hosting off-Broadway shows when the MTC moved to City Center in 1984. The venue was renovated in the 1980s and again in the 2010s. New York City Center, originally the Mecca Temple, is at 131 West 55th Street , between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue , in
22448-470: The City Center of Music and Drama Inc. (CCMD) to operate the building as a municipal performing-arts venue, which reopened on December 11, 1943. In its early years, City Center housed the City Opera and City Ballet , as well as symphony, dance theater, drama, and art companies. After the City Opera and Ballet relocated to Lincoln Center in the 1960s, the CCMD continued to operate the building until 1976, when
22692-504: The City Center on a rainy night; the mayor's program soon became soaked, and the roof was fixed shortly afterward. The CCMD continued to lose money, recording a deficit of $ 225,000 for the 1953–1954 season, even as annual attendance had reached 962,000. An organization called the Friends of City Center was created in January 1954, selling annual memberships to raise money. The Friends sold 3,000 memberships, mostly to small-dollar donors; it
22936-703: The Czech national spirit, as were some of his choral works. By far the most successful of the operas is Rusalka which contains the well-known aria "Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém" ("Song to the Moon"); it is played on contemporary opera stages frequently outside the Czech Republic . This is attributable to their uneven invention and libretti, and perhaps also their staging requirements – The Jacobin , Armida , Vanda and Dimitrij need stages large enough to portray invading armies. Leoš Janáček gained international recognition in
23180-759: The London stage from the mid-19th century into the 1870s. London's Daily Telegraph agreed, describing The Yeomen of the Guard as "a genuine English opera, forerunner of many others, let us hope, and possibly significant of an advance towards a national lyric stage". Sullivan produced a few light operas in the 1890s that were of a more serious nature than those in the G&;S series, including Haddon Hall and The Beauty Stone , but Ivanhoe (which ran for 155 consecutive performances, using alternating casts—a record until Broadway's La bohème ) survives as his only grand opera . In
23424-492: The Mecca Temple earned money from renting its auditorium out, so it was not tax-exempt. By the 1930s, the Great Depression had forced many fraternal groups, such as the Shriners, to reduce the scope of their activities. The Mecca Holding Company, the Mecca Temple's original owner, transferred the building's title to a group of Shriners trustees in 1933. The Fides Opera Company, led by Cesare Sodero , began performing at
23668-611: The Mecca Temple into a theater. In March 1943, La Guardia named a committee to study these plans. La Guardia and Morris cofounded the City Center of Music and Drama (CCMD) with tax lawyer Morton Baum , who was described as "the financial, production, and political brain that held it together". The CCMD was to present opera, concerts, dance, ballet, and theatrical productions at the Mecca Temple. The men wished to provide "cultural entertainment at popular prices", with tickets costing as little as $ 1. To attract working-class audiences, La Guardia proposed that shows start at 5:30 p.m., after
23912-600: The Mecca Temple the same year. Irving Verschleiser, operator of the Central Opera House on the Upper East Side , leased the building's ballroom and kitchens in 1934, with plans to convert it into the Mecca Temple Casino. Aside from opera, dance, theatrical productions, and concerts, the auditorium's events in the 1930s included a Federal Theatre Project circus, a protest meeting attended by over one-fifth of
24156-541: The NYCO Orchestra, at Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall. Bass Stefan Szkafarowsky made his NYCO debut in the title role of Aleko, and Pagliacci featured tenor Francesco Anile in his NYCO debut as Canio. Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote that "the performance offered animated, if sometimes scrappy, playing by the New York City Opera Orchestra ... and vibrant singing from
24400-530: The NYCO in 1950. However, the NYCO board opposed the decision and ultimately the production was postponed for financial reasons. Halasz, however, rescheduled the work for inclusion in the 1951/52 season. Uneasy with Halasz's bold repertoire choices, the NYCO board insisted in 1951 that Halasz submit his repertory plans for their approval. As a result, he resigned, along with several members of his conducting staff, including Jean Morel , and two of his eventual successors, Joseph Rosenstock and Julius Rudel . Faced with
24644-414: The NYCO staged Daniel Catán 's Florencia en el Amazonas June 22–26, 2016 at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater. Based on the writing of Gabriel García Márquez , the opera was part of a new Spanish-language opera series named Ópera en Español. Reviewing the performance, James Jorden of The New York Observer wrote: "[in] the current offering of the resurrected New York City Opera ... every page of
24888-531: The New York City Symphony Orchestra, led by Leopold Stokowski , debuted at City Center the next month. NBC initially sponsored all of City Center's concerts and music performances. The theater's first several shows were profitable, even though ticket prices were capped at $ 1.65. By the end of the first operating season in May 1944, the theater had grossed over $ 414,000 from 171 performances, which had attracted 346,000 guests. City Center recorded
25132-494: The New York State Theater, although Lincoln Center and CCMD officials could not agree on who would control that theater. By then, Variety magazine described the original City Center on 55th Street as having "many faulty seat locations" and a shallow stage. The organization ultimately agreed in January 1965 to permanently relocate its ballet and opera companies to the New York State Theater. The CCMD would relaunch its drama company and would continue to host light opera and drama at
25376-547: The Opera (1755) proved to be an inspiration for Christoph Willibald Gluck 's reforms. He advocated that opera seria had to return to basics and that all the various elements—music (both instrumental and vocal), ballet , and staging—must be subservient to the overriding drama. In 1765 Melchior Grimm published " Poème lyrique ", an influential article for the Encyclopédie on lyric and opera librettos . Several composers of
25620-531: The People's Art Center. Rabinoff planned to leave the exterior intact while remodeling the interior for ballet, opera, and concerts. The theater had reopened by November 1941. It hosted shows such as a series of four programs by the NBC Symphony Orchestra ; the operettas The Gypsy Baron and Beggar Student ; and a set of concerts to raise money for "war stamps" issued during World War II. By 1942,
25864-519: The Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center in January 2016. During its 70-year-plus history, the NYCO has helped launch the careers of many great opera singers including Beverly Sills , Sherrill Milnes , Plácido Domingo , Maralin Niska , Carol Vaness , José Carreras , Shirley Verrett , Tatiana Troyanos , Jerry Hadley , Catherine Malfitano , Samuel Ramey , and Gianna Rolandi . Sills later served as
26108-402: The Shriners moved to the 71st Regiment Armory on Park Avenue in 1905, the armory was not well-suited for theatrical productions. The Shriners also had trouble booking a theater except during the workday. By 1911, the Shriners owned a converted brownstone row house at 107 West 45th Street, and they also held large meetings in the concert hall of Madison Square Garden . The row house contained
26352-611: The Vox performances were presented at New York University 's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts . A note of uncertainty about the company's future emerged in November 2008, when Gerard Mortier , who was scheduled to begin his first official season as General and Artistic Director of the company in 2009, abruptly resigned. The company announced that "The economic climate in which we find ourselves today has caused us both to reconsider proceeding with our plans." Mortier had reportedly been promised
26596-547: The acts of stage plays, operas in the new comic genre of intermezzi , which developed largely in Naples in the 1710s and 1720s, were initially staged during the intermissions of opera seria. They became so popular, however, that they were soon being offered as separate productions. Opera seria was elevated in tone and highly stylised in form, usually consisting of secco recitative interspersed with long da capo arias. These afforded great opportunity for virtuosic singing and during
26840-485: The advent of grand opera typified by the works of Daniel Auber and Giacomo Meyerbeer as well as Carl Maria von Weber 's introduction of German Romantische Oper (German Romantic Opera). The mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Giuseppe Verdi in Italy and Richard Wagner in Germany. The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss in
27084-423: The age of 48. His last performance, at the City Opera, was of Hindemith 's Mathis der Maler in September 1995. Keene was succeeded in 1996 by Glimmerglass Opera 's general and artistic director, Paul Kellogg. Under his leadership, the NYCO added 62 new productions to its repertoire, including several world premieres by American composers, and inaugurated the series: Vox: Showcasing American Composers . Kellogg
27328-603: The area contained the headquarters of organizations such as the American Fine Arts Society , the Lotos Club , and the American Society of Civil Engineers . By the 21st century, the artistic hub had largely been replaced with Billionaires' Row , a series of luxury skyscrapers around the southern end of Central Park . When the Mecca Temple was constructed in 1923, the city block had contained garages, stables, and
27572-457: The art form back to life again. The bel canto opera movement flourished in the early 19th century and is exemplified by the operas of Rossini , Bellini , Donizetti , Pacini , Mercadante and many others. Literally "beautiful singing", bel canto opera derives from the Italian stylistic singing school of the same name. Bel canto lines are typically florid and intricate, requiring supreme agility and pitch control. Examples of famous operas in
27816-407: The audience's attention at the center of the stage, but this design also created difficult sightlines; one observer likened the design to "watching a television screen". Variety magazine stated that the auditorium's stage could fit 100 musicians. Unlike traditional theaters, the stage originally did not have any wing space for performers; even after the theater was renovated in 2011, the wing space
28060-409: The ballet and opera companies for three years. The 75 by 15 ft (22.9 by 4.6 m) visual-art gallery opened in September 1953; it hosted ten exhibitions of 50 canvases per year. The building needed repairs by the mid-1950s, and the city government did not always fix these issues promptly. To convince the city government to fix the leaking roof, Morris invited mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri to
28304-411: The bel canto style include Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola , as well as Bellini's Norma , La sonnambula and I puritani and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor , L'elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale . Following the bel canto era, a more direct, forceful style was rapidly popularized by Giuseppe Verdi , beginning with his biblical opera Nabucco . This opera, and
28548-413: The budget and extended the life of the company. These changes led directly to the opera's first balanced budgets in an over a decade and a sold-out 2011–2012 season. Some of the steps Steel took in his efforts to save the company aroused controversy, including a contentious, but ultimately successful, contract negotiation with the labor unions representing the orchestra and the singers, and the departure of
28792-483: The building completely by 1940. A writer for The New York Times reported that the auditorium had been relegated to "political oratory, all sorts of organizational harangues and resolutions, [and] second-rate prize fights". Opera and ballet impresario Max Rabinoff announced in August 1941 that he would convert the auditorium into the Cosmopolitan Opera House and that he would convert the office section into
29036-414: The building has a tiled rooftop dome. The southern part of the building, which contains the theater, is largely clad with ashlar sandstone and contains a large pointed arch spanning nearly the entirety of the facade. Early plans called for the facade to be laid in contrasting shades of sandstone; ultimately, the building was clad with golden Ohio sandstone. The word "Mecca" was originally inscribed at
29280-403: The building to the CCMD for $ 1 per year. The CCMD saw an $ 220,000 operating loss during the 1955–1956 season, although grants and donations covered much of this cost. After the City Opera suspended the beginning of its 1957 season due to financial deficits, Kirstein unsuccessfully proposed reorganizing City Center and establishing a new opera company. The CCMD had received $ 281,000 in gifts by
29524-405: The business side, Sills proved to be a godsend to the company, showing a prodigious gift for fund-raising. By the time she retired from her post in early 1989, she had grown the company's budget from $ 9 million ($ 38,000,000 in current dollar terms) to $ 26 million ($ 64,000,000 in current dollar terms), and left the company in the black with a $ 3 million ($ 7,000,000 in current dollar terms) surplus. She
29768-498: The chairman of its board. Under Clurman's leadership, the CCMD proposed relocating from its 55th Street theater, which officials felt was obsolete. As part of the proposed City Center Plaza, the CCMD wished to build four theaters, each with 400 to 800 seats, on the site of the third Madison Square Garden (MSG) on Eighth Avenue . While negotiations for the MSG site were ongoing, CCMD officials announced in early 1970 that they would convert
30012-459: The characters express their emotions in a more structured melodic style. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action. In some forms of opera, such as singspiel , opéra comique , operetta , and semi-opera , the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, recitative, are also referred to as arioso . The terminology of
30256-410: The circle of opera fans. Since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on (and written for) these media. Beginning in 2006, a number of major opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. Since 2009, complete performances can be downloaded and are live streamed . The words of an opera are known as
30500-425: The city government moved into the theater in 1943, the space was repainted white because it was easier to maintain. During the mid-20th century, the auditorium was decorated in red, green, blue, and gilded rococo, but it was repainted again in beige and taupe in 1982. The original color scheme was restored in 2011, along with the murals on the ceiling of the mezzanine lobby. The auditorium's original design focused
30744-473: The city's Armenian population. and a speech by former Greek prime minister Alexandros Papanastasiou . Manufacturers Trust foreclosed on the building in 1937 after the Shriners failed to make mortgage payments. Verschleiser then took over the building and began operating it through his company, Mecca Temple Casino Inc. Verschleiser failed to make a profit on the building, and the 130 West 56th Street Corporation took over in 1939. The Shriners had stopped using
30988-423: The company became the first major opera company to have an African American performer. This was in the production of Leoncavallo 's Pagliacci , with Todd Duncan 's performance as Tonio. Lawrence Winters and Robert McFerrin were other notable African American opera pioneers to sing with the company during this period. The first African American woman to sing with the company was soprano Camilla Williams , as
31232-493: The company for only one season. He was fired after his ambitious program of contemporary and unusual works for the 1956 season failed to soothe financial problems at the NYCO, and drew harsh criticism from the press. The press particularly did not care for his new productions of Jacques Offenbach 's Orpheus in the Underworld and the American premiere of Carl Orff 's Der Mond . However, Leinsdorf did have one major triumph with
31476-497: The company in the first season, including Dusolina Giannini , Jennie Tourel and Martha Lipton , who was immediately poached by the Met after their NYCO debuts. Other notable singers Halasz brought to the NYCO included Frances Bible , Adelaide Bishop , Débria Brown , Mack Harrell , Thomas Hayward , Dorothy Kirsten , Brenda Lewis , Eva Likova , Leon Lishner , Regina Resnik , Norman Scott , Ramón Vinay , and Frances Yeend . In 1945,
31720-540: The company included the United States premieres of Toshiro Mayuzumi 's Kinkakuji [The Golden Pavilion] and Jost Meier 's Dreyfus Affair . A month before his death Peter G. Davis wrote in New York that "Keene is one of the few authentic cultural heroes New York has left, thanks to his many recent acts of courage, personal as well as artistic." Keene held the position until his death from lymphoma arising from AIDS at
31964-686: The company is at the very top of its game." The Wall Street Journal opined that "Ms. Caballero is a find." New York Classical Review , while noting some staging flaws, wrote: "If this is to be the standard of the company's work going forward, the future may be very bright indeed." The NYCO's Opening Night for the 2016–17 season, on September 8, 2016, was a new production double bill of two operas that both premiered in May 1892, Aleko (a New York premier; composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff , an adaptation of Alexander Pushkin 's poem The Gypsies ) and Pagliacci (by Ruggero Leoncavallo ). They were directed by Lev Pugliese, with conductor James Meena leading
32208-525: The company left Lincoln Center due to financial pressures and moved its offices to 75 Broad Street in Lower Manhattan . In the 2011−12 and 2012−13 seasons, NYCO performed four operas at different venues in New York City, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music . On October 1, 2013, following an unsuccessful emergency fund-raising campaign, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy . In January 2016,
32452-409: The company's chorus. ... "Pagliacci" offers strong, if not exceptional, vocal performances in the leading roles. The tenor Francesco Anile brings a sizable, somewhat nasal voice to Canio, the betrayed husband. As Nedda, his straying wife, the soprano Jessica Rose Cambio sings with agile coloratura and mostly shimmering sound. ... An enthusiastic audience showed up for the opening event in what should be
32696-717: The company's director from 1979 until 1989. More recent acclaimed American singers who have called NYCO home include David Daniels , Mark Delavan , Mary Dunleavy , Lauren Flanigan , Elizabeth Futral , Bejun Mehta , Robert Brubaker and Carl Tanner . NYCO has similarly championed the work of American composers; approximately one-third of its repertoire has traditionally been American opera. The company's American repertoire has ranged from established works ( e.g. , Douglas Moore 's The Ballad of Baby Doe , Carlisle Floyd 's Susannah , and Leonard Bernstein 's Candide ) to new works ( e.g. , Thomas Pasatieri 's Before Breakfast and Mark Adamo 's Little Women ). NYCO's commitment to
32940-786: The company's first season were priced at just 75 cents to $ 2 ($ 35 in current dollar terms), and the company operated on a budget of $ 30,463 ($ 5,300,000 in current dollar terms) during its first season. At such prices the company was unable to afford the star billing enjoyed by the Metropolitan Opera . Halasz, however, was able to turn this fact into a virtue by making the company an important platform for young singers, particularly American opera singers. The company's first season opened on February 21, 1944, with Giacomo Puccini 's Tosca , and included productions of Friedrich von Flotow 's Martha and Georges Bizet 's Carmen , all of them conducted by Halasz. Several notable singers performed with
33184-588: The company, as the new director. He served in that post for four seasons, during which time he continued in Halász's steps of scheduling innovative programs with unusual repertoire mixed in with standard works. He notably staged the world premiere of Aaron Copland 's The Tender Land , the New York premiere of William Walton 's Troilus and Cressida , and the United States premieres of Gottfried von Einem 's The Trial and Béla Bartók 's Bluebeard's Castle . Rosenstock
33428-421: The company. Rudel had been hired by the NYCO straight out of college in 1944, and had worked on the conducting staff there for 13 years. Under Rudel's leadership, the company reached new artistic heights, drawing critical praise for its performances of both standard and adventurous works. The company became known for its cutting-edge stage direction, largely due to Rudel's willingness to poach renowned directors from
33672-522: The company. With the NYCO Sills had her first major critical success in the first Handel opera staged by the company, the role of Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare opposite Norman Treigle in 1966. At that time Handel operas were rarely produced and the production drew a lot of attention from the international press. Sills was soon making appearances with all the major opera houses around the world. While Sills
33916-408: The distinction between aria and recitative in favour of a seamless flow of "endless melody". Wagner also brought a new philosophical dimension to opera in his works, which were usually based on stories from Germanic or Arthurian legend. Finally, Wagner built his own opera house at Bayreuth with part of the patronage from Ludwig II of Bavaria , exclusively dedicated to performing his own works in
34160-506: The drama is understated, enigmatic and completely un-Wagnerian. Other notable 20th-century names include Ravel , Dukas , Roussel , Honegger and Milhaud . Francis Poulenc is one of the very few post-war composers of any nationality whose operas (which include Dialogues des Carmélites ) have gained a foothold in the international repertory. Olivier Messiaen 's lengthy sacred drama Saint François d'Assise (1983) has also attracted widespread attention. In England, opera's antecedent
34404-573: The early 20th century. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Bohemia . The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism ( Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg ), neoclassicism ( Igor Stravinsky ), and minimalism ( Philip Glass and John Adams ). With the rise of recording technology , singers such as Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas became known to much wider audiences that went beyond
34648-427: The emergence of the separate but closely related art of musical theatre in the late 19th century. Sullivan wrote only one grand opera, Ivanhoe (following the efforts of a number of young English composers beginning about 1876), but he claimed that even his light operas constituted part of a school of "English" opera, intended to supplant the French operettas (usually performed in bad translations) that had dominated
34892-446: The end of the 1956–1957 season, saving it from insolvency, although it still operated at a net loss. After the 1956–1957 season, City Center's drama company stopped performing for several seasons. The following season, the CCMD recorded an operating deficit of over $ 550,000, although donations covered almost all of this deficit. The Friends of City Center had 2,670 members, who paid between $ 10 and $ 1,000 per year. Further losses during
35136-438: The end of the workday. The New York Supreme Court approved the articles of incorporation for the City Center of Music and Drama Inc. in July 1943. La Guardia and Morris appointed a board of 24 people to operate the CCMD. The city government hired Aymar Embury II the same month to renovate the Mecca Temple's auditorium. City officials filed plans for the renovation with the city's Department of Buildings that August, and
35380-520: The first actual "opera singers", Madama Europa . Opera did not remain confined to court audiences for long. In 1637, the idea of a "season" (often during the carnival ) of publicly attended operas supported by ticket sales emerged in Venice . Monteverdi had moved to the city from Mantua and composed his last operas, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea , for the Venetian theatre in
35624-672: The first decade of the 21st century, the librettist of an early Birtwistle opera, Michael Nyman , has been focusing on composing operas, including Facing Goya , Man and Boy: Dada , and Love Counts . Today composers such as Thomas Adès continue to export English opera abroad. Also in the 20th century, American composers like George Gershwin ( Porgy and Bess ), Scott Joplin ( Treemonisha ), Leonard Bernstein ( Candide ), Gian Carlo Menotti , Douglas Moore , and Carlisle Floyd began to contribute English-language operas infused with touches of popular musical styles. They were followed by composers such as Philip Glass ( Einstein on
35868-593: The first opera performed by the NYCO. The NYCO announced that it would round out the 2015–16 season with the performance of three contemporary works, all new to the company. On March 16, 2016, a new concert series at the Appel Room in Jazz at Lincoln Center was inaugurated with the premiere of David Hertzberg's "Sunday Morning". A work for soprano and small ensemble, it featured soprano Sarah Shafer and mezzo-soprano Kirstin Chávez. That
36112-483: The first professional production of Carlisle Floyd 's Susannah with Phyllis Curtin in the title role, and Norman Treigle as the Reverend Blitch. The production was a critical success with both audiences and critics, and the opera went on to become an American classic. After Leinsdorf was fired, the NYCO board canceled its 1957 spring season and eventually appointed Julius Rudel as the new general director of
36356-461: The first true English-language opera. Blow's immediate successor was the better known Henry Purcell . Despite the success of his masterwork Dido and Aeneas (1689), in which the action is furthered by the use of Italian-style recitative, much of Purcell's best work was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but instead, he usually worked within the constraints of the semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques are contained within
36600-431: The form and style that would dominate opera throughout the twentieth century. Rather than long, suspended melodies, Falstaff contains many little motifs and mottos, that, rather than being expanded upon, are introduced and subsequently dropped, only to be brought up again later. These motifs never are expanded upon, and just as the audience expects a character to launch into a long melody, a new character speaks, introducing
36844-530: The future of American opera was demonstrated in its annual series, Vox, Contemporary Opera Lab , in which operas-in-progress were showcased, giving composers a chance to hear their work performed by professional singers and orchestra. The company has also occasionally produced musicals and operettas , including works by Stephen Sondheim and Gilbert and Sullivan . The NYCO was founded as the New York City Center Opera, and originally made its home at
37088-529: The genre of opera seria , which became the leading form of Italian opera until the end of the 18th century. Once the Metastasian ideal had been firmly established, comedy in Baroque-era opera was reserved for what came to be called opera buffa . Before such elements were forced out of opera seria, many libretti had featured a separately unfolding comic plot as sort of an "opera-within-an-opera". One reason for this
37332-452: The golden age of opera seria the singer really became the star. The role of the hero was usually written for the high-pitched male castrato voice, which was produced by castration of the singer before puberty , which prevented a boy's larynx from being transformed at puberty. Castrati such as Farinelli and Senesino , as well as female sopranos such as Faustina Bordoni , became in great demand throughout Europe as opera seria ruled
37576-410: The greatest French grand opera , Don Carlos , and ending his career with two Shakespeare-inspired works, Otello and Falstaff , which reveal how far Italian opera had grown in sophistication since the early 19th century. These final two works showed Verdi at his most masterfully orchestrated, and are both incredibly influential, and modern. In Falstaff , Verdi sets the pre-eminent standard for
37820-613: The growth of Russian nationalism across the artistic spectrum, as part of the more general Slavophilism movement. In the 20th century, the traditions of Russian opera were developed by many composers including Sergei Rachmaninoff in his works The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini , Igor Stravinsky in Le Rossignol , Mavra , Oedipus rex , and The Rake's Progress , Sergei Prokofiev in The Gambler , The Love for Three Oranges , The Fiery Angel , Betrothal in
38064-436: The horseshoe arches in the arcade is supported by pink-veined and gray-veined granite columns and contain voussoirs made of glazed ocher tiles. The tympanum of each arch has multicolored tiles, some of which depict a scimitar and a crescent. There are also metal lamps within the arches. The entryway's design reflects the arrangement of the staircases and lobby inside. The five central arches are grouped together and lead to
38308-587: The house seats. In January 1956 the NYCO board accepted Rosenstock's resignation. He stated that he left because he was faced with too much non-musical work such as bookings and business negotiations. The board appointed Erich Leinsdorf , who had worked as a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, the Cleveland Orchestra , and the Rochester Philharmonic , to take his place. Leinsdorf stayed with
38552-523: The inauguration of the NYCO's new home at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center (now called the David H. Koch Theater ) on February 22, 1966. That same season the company presented the New York premiere of Poulenc 's Dialogues of the Carmelites . Like his predecessors, Rudel had an eye for young American talent and was responsible for helping to cultivate a couple of generations of American singers. Among
38796-452: The internationally popular The Bartered Bride . Smetana's eight operas created the bedrock of the Czech opera repertory, but of these only The Bartered Bride is performed regularly outside the composer's homeland. After reaching Vienna in 1892 and London in 1895 it rapidly became part of the repertory of every major opera company worldwide. Antonín Dvořák 's nine operas, except his first, have librettos in Czech and were intended to convey
39040-400: The invocation offered by Episcopal bishop William T. Manning ; contemporary sources characterized the building as a "mosque". The Mecca Temple's auditorium first opened to the general public in May 1925, when it hosted a fashion show. By then, the building was complete except for interior decorations and the installation of seats on the first floor. John Philip Sousa 's band performed in
39284-512: The irregularly shaped site, and he needed to accommodate meeting rooms, an auditorium, and a banquet hall. As such, he placed the clubrooms and lodge rooms on the northern half of the site, which was narrower and faced 56th Street. The northern portion of the building, at 12 stories high, is also taller than the rest of the building. The auditorium and banquet hall were placed on the wider southern half, facing 55th Street, since these spaces were to be used much more frequently. The southern part of
39528-516: The late 18th century. Nevertheless, native forms would develop in spite of this influence. In 1644, Sigmund Staden produced the first Singspiel , Seelewig , a popular form of German-language opera in which singing alternates with spoken dialogue. In the late 17th century and early 18th century, the Theater am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg presented German operas by Keiser , Telemann and Handel . Yet most of
39772-424: The late 1940s, with over 750,000 guests during the 1946–1947 season. Although the city government no longer financially supported the center, City Center sold over $ 1 million worth of tickets per year. City Center accommodated about 578,000 guests during the 1947–1948 season and around 576,000 guests the following season. The New York City Symphony stopped performing at City Center after that season, mainly due to
40016-598: The leadership Zacharia Paliashvili , who fused local folk songs and stories with 19th-century Romantic classical themes. The key figure of Hungarian national opera in the 19th century was Ferenc Erkel , whose works mostly dealt with historical themes. Among his most often performed operas are Hunyadi László and Bánk bán . The most famous modern Hungarian opera is Béla Bartók 's Duke Bluebeard's Castle . Stanisław Moniuszko 's opera Straszny Dwór (in English The Haunted Manor ) (1861–64) represents
40260-513: The lots at 131–135 West 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan in December 1921. Yale, in turn, had acquired the site from William S. and Mary E. Mason three months beforehand. The sale was finalized in January 1922; the Shriners hoped that their new temple would increase land values in the surrounding area. The Shriners bought two stables at 133 and 135 West 56th Street from George C. Mason that April for $ 140,000. H. P. Knowles filed plans for
40504-543: The main auditorium is disputed but has been variously cited as 4,080 or 4,400. According to the Boston Daily Globe , the main auditorium originally had a foyer with space for another 600 people, bringing the total capacity to 5,000. These seats were spread across a ground-story orchestra level and two steeply raked balconies; in contrast to the balconies, the orchestra was originally nearly flat. Both balcony levels are supported by girders that are cantilevered from
40748-438: The major German composers of the time, including Handel himself, as well as Graun , Hasse and later Gluck , chose to write most of their operas in foreign languages, especially Italian. In contrast to Italian opera, which was generally composed for the aristocratic class, German opera was generally composed for the masses and tended to feature simple folk-like melodies, and it was not until the arrival of Mozart that German opera
40992-499: The most daring and revolutionary. In it, Verdi blurs the distinction between the aria and recitative as it never before was, leading the opera to be "an unending string of duets". La traviata was also novel. It tells the story of courtesan, and it includes elements of verismo or "realistic" opera, because rather than featuring great kings and figures from literature, it focuses on the tragedies of ordinary life and society. After these, he continued to develop his style, composing perhaps
41236-537: The most obvious stylistic manifestation of modernism in opera is the development of atonality . The move away from traditional tonality in opera had begun with Richard Wagner , and in particular the Tristan chord . Composers such as Richard Strauss , Claude Debussy , Giacomo Puccini , Paul Hindemith , Benjamin Britten and Hans Pfitzner pushed Wagnerian harmony further with a more extreme use of chromaticism and greater use of dissonance. Another aspect of modernist opera
41480-414: The most popular of all opéra comiques. Jules Massenet , Camille Saint-Saëns and Léo Delibes all composed works which are still part of the standard repertory, examples being Massenet's Manon , Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila and Delibes' Lakmé . Their operas formed another genre, the opéra lyrique , combined opéra comique and grand opera. It is less grandiose than grand opera, but without
41724-417: The most significant figure was undoubtedly Wagner . Wagner was one of the most revolutionary and controversial composers in musical history. Starting under the influence of Weber and Meyerbeer , he gradually evolved a new concept of opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk (a "complete work of art"), a fusion of music, poetry and painting. He greatly increased the role and power of the orchestra, creating scores with
41968-410: The most tension between Halasz and the board was Halasz's commitment to staging new works by American composers and rarely heard operas at the opera house. The first New York City premiere presented by the company was Richard Strauss 's Ariadne auf Naxos on October 10, 1946, with Ella Flesch in the title role, Virginia MacWatters as Zerbinetta, and James Pease as the music master. The production
42212-454: The musical stage in England. The only exceptions were ballad operas , such as John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera (1728), musical burlesques , European operettas , and late Victorian era light operas , notably the Savoy operas of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan , all of which types of musical entertainments frequently spoofed operatic conventions; these genres contributed significantly to
42456-400: The narrowest and are flanked by lanterns on either side. The upper 11 stories are clad with yellow brick. The third story contains three windows, which contain sandstone moldings, balconies, and pediments . All the decoration above the third story was made of buff-colored terracotta. The stories above originally contained the Shriners' lodge rooms, so Knowles chose not to add windows, as
42700-476: The new genre of grand opera , a form whose most famous exponent was another foreigner, Giacomo Meyerbeer . Meyerbeer's works, such as Les Huguenots , emphasised virtuoso singing and extraordinary stage effects. Lighter opéra comique also enjoyed tremendous success in the hands of Boïeldieu , Auber , Hérold and Adam . In this climate, the operas of the French-born composer Hector Berlioz struggled to gain
42944-412: The new temple by issuing bonds and by constructing an office building above the temple. The order issued $ 1.5 million in bonds, and its 11,080 members had purchased $ 1 million worth of bonds by the end of 1921, allowing the Shriners to build a standalone temple. The rest of the bond issue was used to pay expenses, taxes, and interest on the mortgage loan. Mecca Temple paid Yale University $ 400,000 for
43188-473: The north are Carnegie Hall , Carnegie Hall Tower , Russian Tea Room , and Metropolitan Tower from west to east. Other nearby buildings include 140 West 57th Street , 130 West 57th Street , and the Parker New York hotel to the northeast, as well as the 55th Street Playhouse to the southwest and 1345 Avenue of the Americas to the southeast. The neighborhood was part of a former artistic hub around
43432-499: The offices on the sixth floor. The theater's modern-day rehearsal studios occupy the upper stories. The City Center building on 55th Street was constructed as the Mecca Temple, the headquarters of the Shriners. The order's previous headquarters had been located at Sixth Avenue and 23rd Street since 1875. The order began hosting large events at Carnegie Hall in 1891, but the hall banned smoking, even though many Shriners enjoyed smoking large cigars during their meetings. Although
43676-534: The ones that would follow in Verdi's career, revolutionized Italian opera, changing it from merely a display of vocal fireworks, with Rossini's and Donizetti's works, to dramatic story-telling. Verdi's operas resonated with the growing spirit of Italian nationalism in the post- Napoleonic era, and he quickly became an icon of the patriotic movement for a unified Italy. In the early 1850s, Verdi produced his three most popular operas: Rigoletto , Il trovatore and La traviata . The first of these, Rigoletto , proved
43920-427: The opera from Lincoln Center out of financial necessity. While the company had for more than a decade discussed publicly the idea of leaving Lincoln Center, the company's ultimate departure, driven by the financial reality that the opera would otherwise have to close, was met alternately with praise and scepticism. Notwithstanding artistic successes, record fundraising, and dramatic changes to the company's business model,
44164-425: The opera ultimately succumbed to bankruptcy. On October 1, 2013, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York , citing an inability to raise sufficient funding to continue the 2013/14 season. The company's last production was the U.S. premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage 's Anna Nicole . The case was before Judge Sean Lane. In an article in
44408-427: The operas of Mozart , who wrote in Vienna near the century's close. Leading Italian-born composers of opera seria include Alessandro Scarlatti , Antonio Vivaldi and Nicola Porpora . Opera seria had its weaknesses and critics. The taste for embellishment on behalf of the superbly trained singers, and the use of spectacle as a replacement for dramatic purity and unity drew attacks. Francesco Algarotti 's Essay on
44652-523: The orchestra, and equally, what appears to be a fountain of acting chops. In the famous scene in which Canio realizes that Nedda has been unfaithful, the soft sobbing into his costume was undeniably affecting. And when he leaped onstage to open the traveling show, his drunkenness was believable, not overdone. ... After a rocky few years, this musically and emotionally satisfying double bill is the best evidence yet that this storied company may at last be staggering to its feet." The Huffington Post opined: "NYCO
44896-494: The other dominating force in English opera at this time was George Frideric Handel , whose opera serias filled the London operatic stages for decades and influenced most home-grown composers, like John Frederick Lampe , who wrote using Italian models. This situation continued throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, including in the work of Michael William Balfe , and the operas of the great Italian composers, as well as those of Mozart, Beethoven, and Meyerbeer, continued to dominate
45140-572: The period, including Niccolò Jommelli and Tommaso Traetta , attempted to put these ideals into practice. The first to succeed however, was Gluck. Gluck strove to achieve a "beautiful simplicity". This is evident in his first reform opera, Orfeo ed Euridice , where his non-virtuosic vocal melodies are supported by simple harmonies and a richer orchestra presence throughout. Gluck's reforms have had resonance throughout operatic history. Weber, Mozart, and Wagner, in particular, were influenced by his ideals. Mozart, in many ways Gluck's successor, combined
45384-416: The plan was for Sills to share the post with Rudel, and slowly phase him out. However, Rudel decided to resign in 1979 in order to take a position as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic , and Sills took the post over entirely. At the time Sills assumed her position, the NYCO was in financial difficulties, burdened with a three million dollar debt after a few seasons with less than favorable reviews. On
45628-440: The quintessential designer of these productions, and this style was to dominate the English stage for three centuries. These masques contained songs and dances. In Ben Jonson 's Lovers Made Men (1617), "the whole masque was sung after the Italian manner, stilo recitativo". The approach of the English Commonwealth closed theatres and halted any developments that may have led to the establishment of English opera. However, in 1656,
45872-437: The rear of the auditorium. The first balcony level is supported by a pair of diagonal girders on either end because of its unusual shape. The second balcony level, also known as the gallery, is cantilevered above the first balcony and the orchestra; the center of this level is supported by a truss measuring 92.5 feet (28.2 m) long. During the mid-20th century, the seating capacity was reduced to approximately 2,932. During
46116-413: The resignations of most of their creative staff, the board reluctantly backed down and The Dybbuk was given its world premiere at the NYCO on October 4, 1951. But tensions remained high between Halasz and the board, and they fired him in late 1951 when Halasz became involved in union disputes. After Halász was fired, the NYCO board appointed Joseph Rosenstock , who was already working as a conductor with
46360-509: The role of opera in African-American history , including the programs Opera at the Schomburg , A Tribute to Robert McFerrin , and X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X . In April 2010, NYCO's VOX Contemporary Opera Lab featured new works of emerging and established composers at New York University . The company's 2010–2011 season included a new production of Leonard Bernstein 's A Quiet Place directed by Christopher Alden ; Richard Strauss 's Intermezzo directed by Leon Major ; and
46604-617: The same characteristics as described above, though Berg combined his highly personal interpretation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique with melodic passages of a more traditionally tonal nature (quite Mahlerian in character) which perhaps partially explains why his operas have remained in standard repertory, despite their controversial music and plots. Schoenberg's theories have influenced (either directly or indirectly) significant numbers of opera composers ever since, even if they themselves did not compose using his techniques. New York City Center New York City Center (previously known as
46848-425: The score sails orgasmically over the top, as sinfully rich as molten caramel sauce ... The reconstituted New York City Opera should be bursting with pride at the high level of quality extending across every aspect of this presentation ... Among as strong a cast of vocalists as I've heard at NYCO in 20 years or more, the standout appropriately was Elizabeth Caballero as Florencia. ... this production makes it clear that
47092-460: The section on modernism . During the late 19th century, the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II , an admirer of the French -language operettas composed by Jacques Offenbach , composed several German-language operettas, the most famous of which was Die Fledermaus . Nevertheless, rather than copying the style of Offenbach, the operettas of Strauss II had distinctly Viennese flavor to them. In rivalry with imported Italian opera productions,
47336-419: The sense "composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined" in 1639; the first recorded English usage in this sense dates to 1648. Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the " Camerata de' Bardi ". Significantly, Dafne
47580-404: The singers whose careers he furthered were bass-baritone Samuel Ramey and lirico-spinto soprano Carol Vaness . One of his most apt decisions was in forming an artistic partnership with Beverly Sills , making her the NYCO's leading soprano from 1956 until her retirement from the stage in 1979, although Joseph Rosenstock deserves the credit for hiring her in 1955 for her first performances with
47824-408: The slope of the orchestra level, widening each seat by 2 inches, and reupholstering them in blue and green. The proscenium arch and the ceiling were decorated in the Islamic style, with such motifs as stalactites and honeycombs. The main auditorium's interior contained Moorish motifs such as multi-pointed stars, lancet windows , and large chandeliers hanging from molded ceiling plasterwork. After
48068-506: The spoken dialogue of opèra comique . At the same time, the influence of Richard Wagner was felt as a challenge to the French tradition. Many French critics angrily rejected Wagner's music dramas while many French composers closely imitated them with variable success. Perhaps the most interesting response came from Claude Debussy . As in Wagner's works, the orchestra plays a leading role in Debussy's unique opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) and there are no real arias, only recitative. But
48312-401: The stage in every country except France. Farinelli was one of the most famous singers of the 18th century. Italian opera set the Baroque standard. Italian libretti were the norm, even when a German composer like Handel found himself composing the likes of Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare for London audiences. Italian libretti remained dominant in the classical period as well, for example in
48556-407: The structure of a spoken play, such as Shakespeare in Purcell's The Fairy-Queen (1692) and Beaumont and Fletcher in The Prophetess (1690) and Bonduca (1696). The main characters of the play tend not to be involved in the musical scenes, which means that Purcell was rarely able to develop his characters through song. Despite these hindrances, his aim (and that of his collaborator John Dryden )
48800-593: The style he wanted. Opera would never be the same after Wagner and for many composers his legacy proved a heavy burden. On the other hand, Richard Strauss accepted Wagnerian ideas but took them in wholly new directions, along with incorporating the new form introduced by Verdi. He first won fame with the scandalous Salome and the dark tragedy Elektra , in which tonality was pushed to the limits. Then Strauss changed tack in his greatest success, Der Rosenkavalier , where Mozart and Viennese waltzes became as important an influence as Wagner. Strauss continued to produce
49044-503: The temple's first public concert that October, and the New York Symphony Orchestra relocated its performances to the auditorium from the Aeolian Building on 42nd Street. During the 1920s, the Mecca Temple also hosted events such as a meeting of post-office workers; a memorial service for American Revolutionary War military commander Casimir Pulaski ; and the meetings of Congregation Rodeph Sholom . Unlike other Shriners temples, which were tax-exempt, mainly philanthropic concerns,
49288-453: The terracotta frieze. The five center bays are flanked by blue terracotta pilasters and topped by a muqarnas cornice above the mezzanine level. The upper portion of the 55th Street facade is relatively plain in design, except for lancet windows on the sides. The uppermost part of the facade is stepped upward at its center, following the curve of the domed roof, and is topped by a large cornice with dentils . The corners are chamfered at
49532-484: The theater's lobby. The two horseshoe arches on either side lead to staircases that ascend to the theater's mezzanine and first balcony. On either side of the arcade are double-height sandstone arches, which connect to staircases that lead down to the basement and up to the second balcony. Each of the arcade's five central doorways is topped by a pair of arched windows on the mezzanine level; these windows are separated by engaged columns and surrounded by an extension of
49776-519: The theater's poor acoustics. George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein 's Ballet Society became a resident organization of the CCMD in 1948 and was accordingly renamed the New York City Ballet Company . The CCMD established the New York City Theater Company the same season. The New York City Dance Theater performed at City Center during the 1949–1950 season, although it did not schedule any performances afterward. Despite grossing over $ 1.2 million from opera, ballet, theater, and dance performances during
50020-463: The theatre who had not necessarily been involved with opera before. By the mid-1960s the company was generally regarded as one of the leading opera companies in the United States. During his tenure at City Opera, Rudel displayed a strong commitment to American opera, commissioning 12 works and leading 19 world premieres. He also led a large number of United States premieres, including Alberto Ginastera 's Don Rodrigo with tenor Plácido Domingo for
50264-422: The time that "many consider [the NYCO] the nation's second most important house." In January 2009, when Steel was asked to take the helm of the opera to try to turn the company around, it had suffered a string of financial and managerial blows: a decade of multimillion-dollar deficits, a "dark" season in 2008/09 ( i.e. , a season without any staged opera performances), the depletion of Company's endowment to pay off
50508-430: The time, the gallery attracted 2,500 monthly visitors, and it had displayed 3,600 artworks, one-eighth of which had been sold. Donors reduced the organization's operating deficit to $ 12,000 for the 1961–1962 season, and the CCMD had a $ 37,500 surplus the next season, although the City Opera's losses soon eliminated this surplus. In advance of the 1964 New York World's Fair , the City Ballet announced that it would move to
50752-414: The title heroine in Madama Butterfly in 1946. Halasz had a tumultuous relationship with the company's board of directors, given his strong opinions about what the NYCO should be. For one, he supported the idea of performing foreign language works in English to make opera more accessible to American audiences. He insisted on offering at least one production in English every season. The issue that created,
50996-449: The top of the dome. Unlike other domes in the United States, it was designed as a true sphere. The lower half of each rib is composed of two chords , while the upper half is made of I-beams measuring 15 inches (380 mm) thick. The inner chord of the dome rises 37.5 feet (11.4 m) and has a diameter of 88 feet (27 m); by contrast, the outer chord has a radius of about 54 feet (16 m). The dome's outer surface consists of
51240-449: The top of the large arch. The 55th Street elevation also contains multicolored glazed terracotta tiles originally manufactured by the New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Company . In the early 2010s, a glass-and-steel marquee was installed above the entrance. The entrance consists of an alfiz with an arcade of nine horseshoe arches . The arches are surrounded by a terracotta frieze with ocher, green, and blue foliate motifs. Each of
51484-413: The top; this was intended to serve as a transition between the cube-shaped lower stories and the domed roof. The theater's domed roof measures 104 ft (32 m) wide and 50 ft (15 m) tall, with 28,475 pieces of Ludowici Spanish roof tile. Structurally, the roof is composed of four main ribs; between these are twelve smaller ribs, which are supported at their tops by a "ring" just below
51728-404: The trend. The changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below . The Italian word opera means "work", both in the sense of the labour done and the result produced. The Italian word derives from the Latin word opera , a singular noun meaning "work" and also the plural of the noun opus . According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the Italian word was first used in
51972-399: The various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below . During both the Baroque and Classical periods , recitative could appear in two basic forms, each of which was accompanied by a different instrumental ensemble: secco (dry) recitative, sung with a free rhythm dictated by the accent of the words, accompanied only by basso continuo , which was usually a harpsichord and
52216-399: The world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini 's La bohème , Tosca , and Madama Butterfly . Later Italian composers, such as Berio and Nono , have experimented with modernism . The first German opera was Dafne , composed by Heinrich Schütz in 1627, but the music score has not survived. Italian opera held a great sway over German-speaking countries until
52460-444: The years. Immediately beneath the main auditorium are two smaller theaters, one of which is used by MTC; these occupy what was originally a banquet hall. This section contains an ornate sandstone facade with an alfiz –like entryway made of terracotta, as well as a dome measuring about 104 feet (32 m) across. The northern section is much simpler in design, with a largely windowless brick facade, and contains four rehearsal studios and
52704-402: Was Tsefal i Prokris by the Italian composer Francesco Araja (1755). The development of Russian-language opera was supported by the Russian composers Vasily Pashkevich , Yevstigney Fomin and Alexey Verstovsky . However, the real birth of Russian opera came with Mikhail Glinka and his two great operas A Life for the Tsar (1836) and Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842). After him, during
52948-672: Was a revival of Rachel Crothers 's play Susan and God , on December 13, 1943. Initially, City Center presented revivals of successful Broadway shows to attract as many visitors as possible. Performers who appeared at City Center between the 1940s and 1960s included Helen Hayes , Montgomery Clift , Orson Welles , Gwen Verdon , Charlton Heston , Marcel Marceau , Bob Fosse , Nicholas Magallanes , Francisco Moncion , Tallulah Bankhead , Vincent Price , Jessica Tandy , Hume Cronyn , Uta Hagen , and Christopher Walken . The newly-established New York City Opera started performing at City Center in February 1944 under director Laszlo Halasz ;
53192-536: Was able to achieve this while still reducing ticket prices by 20 percent, with the hope of attracting new and younger audiences. Sills retired as General Director in 1989, and was replaced by conductor Christopher Keene —largely on the basis of Sills' strong recommendation. Keene had previously worked as a conductor at the NYCO since 1970, and had served as the NYCO's Music Director from 1982 to 1986. Keene consistently presented innovative opera seasons that were successful with critics during his tenure. His last season with
53436-428: Was able to match its Italian counterpart in musical sophistication. The theatre company of Abel Seyler pioneered serious German-language opera in the 1770s, marking a break with the previous simpler musical entertainment. Mozart 's Singspiele , Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) and Die Zauberflöte (1791) were an important breakthrough in achieving international recognition for German opera. The tradition
53680-449: Was able to move beyond the Italian influences and create his own unique and distinctly English voice. His modernized ballad opera, Love in a Village (1762), began a vogue for pastiche opera that lasted well into the 19th century. Charles Burney wrote that Arne introduced "a light, airy, original, and pleasing melody, wholly different from that of Purcell or Handel, whom all English composers had either pillaged or imitated". Besides Arne,
53924-810: Was also instrumental in establishing the NYCO as an important producer of operas by baroque masters such as Handel, Gluck , and Rameau , sparking a renewal of interest in these long-neglected works. A particular triumph was a highly lauded production of Handel's Orlando in 2007 in a modern production by Chas Rader-Shieber that starred countertenor Bejun Mehta and the soprano Amy Burton. In keeping with NYCO's "people's opera" tradition, Kellogg inaugurated NYCO's "Opera for All" event, with reduced priced tickets, in 2005. Kellogg announced his retirement in 2007. Anthony Tommasini , in The New York Times , commented that Kellogg had "a record of innovation and achievement to be proud of. Few leaders of performing-arts institutions have been as effective at defining and carrying out
54168-483: Was also the first NYCO director to include musical theatre in the company's repertoire, with a 1954 production of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II 's Show Boat ; a production which starred Broadway musical veteran and operatic soprano Helena Bliss . This decision was ridiculed by the press, but Rosenstock felt justified as the musical played to a packed house. Meanwhile, the company's staging of Donizetti 's opera Don Pasquale that season only sold 35 percent of
54412-576: Was an annual concert series dedicated to the development of contemporary American operas. Founded by New York City Opera in 1999, the festival offered composers and librettists the opportunity to hear excerpts of their works performed with professional singers and musicians. Up to twelve excerpts of previously un-produced operas were performed at each festival. Many of the operas that were presented at Vox went on to be presented in full production by New York City Opera and various other opera companies, including Richard Danielpour 's Margaret Garner . From 2006,
54656-409: Was an attempt to attract members of the growing merchant class, newly wealthy, but still not as cultured as the nobility, to the public opera houses . These separate plots were almost immediately resurrected in a separately developing tradition that partly derived from the commedia dell'arte , a long-flourishing improvisatory stage tradition of Italy. Just as intermedi had once been performed in between
54900-424: Was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama , part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance . The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne , however, is lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice , dating from 1600,
55144-441: Was appointed as City Center's managing director later that year. CCMD officials, citing increasing production costs asked the New York State Legislature in early 1953 to pass a law allowing the organization to lease the building for $ 1 annually. The law was enacted later the same year. The CCMD began raising $ 200,000 in April 1953 as part of its first-ever fundraiser, and the Rockefeller Foundation also donated $ 200,000 to fund
55388-420: Was appointed as the chairman of City Center's board of directors. The same year, the Robert Joffrey Ballet became a resident dance company and was renamed the City Center Joffrey Ballet, relocating to 55th Street that September. The CCMD's drama company also resumed performances at the 55th Street theater during the 1966–1967 season, having been inactive for nine years. The city government donated $ 500,000 for
55632-585: Was brought to Russia in the 1730s by the Italian operatic troupes and soon it became an important part of entertainment for the Russian Imperial Court and aristocracy . Many foreign composers such as Baldassare Galuppi , Giovanni Paisiello , Giuseppe Sarti , and Domenico Cimarosa (as well as various others) were invited to Russia to compose new operas, mostly in the Italian language . Simultaneously some domestic musicians of Ukrainian origin like Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky were sent abroad to learn to write operas. The first opera written in Russian
55876-413: Was busy with her international career, she remained a regular performer with the NYCO until her retirement. In 1970 John Simon White was appointed managing director of the NYCO, in order to free up Rudel's schedule for the more artistic side of his job. White remained in that position until 1980. Upon Sills's retirement from the stage in 1979, she succeeded Rudel as General Director of the NYCO. Initially
56120-399: Was described by the contemporary press as "record breaking", and it put the company "on the map". The NYCO subsequently toured Ariadne to His Majesty's Theatre, Montreal , giving the opera's Canadian premiere. The first world premiere at the house was William Grant Still 's Troubled Island in 1949. It was notably the first grand opera composed by an African-American to be produced in
56364-430: Was designed by architects Harry P. Knowles (a Master Mason ), who died before its completion, in conjunction with the firm of Clinton and Russell . The building's design is Neo-Moorish , although sources have described the 55th Street wing as "Moresco-Baroque" and "delightfully absurd". An article for the Architectural Forum characterized the Shriners' clubhouses in general as " Saracenic ". The building contains
56608-463: Was designed in a substantially different manner than that on 55th Street, as the northern part of the building was designed for a different purpose. The facade contains elements of an abstract classical style. At ground level, the facade is made of limestone and contains five arches. The outermost arches are the widest and are connected directly to stage rear, as is the center arch, which is slightly narrower. The second-outermost arches on either side are
56852-419: Was developed by Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813–1873) whose most famous work Zaporozhets za Dunayem (A Cossack Beyond the Danube) is regularly performed around the world. Other Ukrainian opera composers include Mykola Lysenko ( Taras Bulba and Natalka Poltavka ), Heorhiy Maiboroda , and Yuliy Meitus . At the turn of the century, a distinct national opera movement also began to emerge in Georgia under
57096-416: Was developed in the 19th century by Beethoven with his Fidelio (1805), inspired by the climate of the French Revolution . Carl Maria von Weber established German Romantic opera in opposition to the dominance of Italian bel canto . His Der Freischütz (1821) shows his genius for creating a supernatural atmosphere. Other opera composers of the time include Marschner , Schubert and Lortzing , but
57340-432: Was followed by the East Coast premiere of composer Stewart Wallace 's and librettist Michael Korie 's Hopper's Wife – a surreal, erotically-charged 90-minute 1997 chamber opera fantasy about an imagined marriage between the painter Edward Hopper and the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper . It was directed by Andreas Mitisek at Harlem Stage from April 28 through May 1, 2016, in his New York City directorial debut. Third,
57584-417: Was fully staged in 1945 in Armenia. The first years of the Soviet Union saw the emergence of new national operas, such as the Koroğlu (1937) by the Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov . The first Kyrgyz opera, Ai-Churek , premiered in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre on 26 May 1939, during Kyrgyz Art Decade. It was composed by Vladimir Vlasov , Abdylas Maldybaev and Vladimir Fere . The libretto
57828-469: Was pleased to approve the plan of "a beloved and important cultural institution," and that "It's been the participation of people who care greatly about the opera that's led to what I think is a very good result here today." Under the reorganization plan, the opera will put on annual seasons, and its general director will be Michael Capasso . Gail Kruvand, the chairwoman of the City Opera orchestra committee, said: "We're thrilled ... and we're looking forward to
58072-457: Was reorganized after losing $ 25,000. The City Center Light Opera Company hosted its first performances in May 1954. Kirstein resigned as City Center's managing director in January 1955 because he and the board of directors could not agree on basic policy. Whereas Kirstein wanted to spend more money to stage experimental shows, the board wished to stage more established shows and reduce its expenses. The Board of Estimate voted that February to lease
58316-472: Was the 17th-century jig . This was an afterpiece that came at the end of a play. It was frequently libellous and scandalous and consisted in the main of dialogue set to music arranged from popular tunes. In this respect, jigs anticipate the ballad operas of the 18th century. At the same time, the French masque was gaining a firm hold at the English Court, with even more lavish splendour and highly realistic scenery than had been seen before. Inigo Jones became
58560-418: Was the first English composer to experiment with Italian-style all-sung comic opera, with his greatest success being Thomas and Sally in 1760. His opera Artaxerxes (1762) was the first attempt to set a full-blown opera seria in English and was a huge success, holding the stage until the 1830s. Although Arne imitated many elements of Italian opera, he was perhaps the only English composer at that time who
58804-415: Was to establish serious opera in England, but these hopes ended with Purcell's early death at the age of 36. Following Purcell, the popularity of opera in England dwindled for several decades. A revived interest in opera occurred in the 1730s which is largely attributed to Thomas Arne , both for his own compositions and for alerting Handel to the commercial possibilities of large-scale works in English. Arne
59048-450: Was too small to accommodate certain types of productions, To accommodate the Shriners, who frequently smoked in the Mecca Temple, there was an air intake on the auditorium's roof. Fresh air traveled from the intake to a fan and heater room above the auditorium's proscenium, and air was then distributed through the floor slabs of each level. A lighting booth was also installed in the auditorium in 2011. The basement originally contained
59292-411: Was typical for office buildings of the time. Instead, on the fourth through ninth stories, the center of the facade contains six vertical piers , which are made of projecting bricks that are angled outward. The side elevations of the northern half of the building contain even less decoration; they largely consist of brick walls with some scattered window openings. Originally, the Mecca Temple included
59536-436: Was written by Joomart Bokonbaev, Jusup Turusbekov, and Kybanychbek Malikov. The opera is based on the Kyrgyz heroic epic Manas . In Iran, opera gained more attention after the introduction of Western classical music in the late 19th century. However, it took until mid 20th century for Iranian composers to start experiencing with the field, especially as the construction of the Roudaki Hall in 1967, made possible staging of
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